Adia Costas (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chiron_survivor) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
nexus_crossings2017-08-15 08:17 pm
chiron_survivor) wrote in nexus_crossings2017-08-15 08:17 pm
A reminder to not count your Earths before they've hatched.
It is not unusual to find Adia in the Plaza. She is there frequently enough, sitting in front of a Nexus terminal or fixing herself a cup of coffee. It is not even unusual to find her accompanied by pokémon. This time it's only one, a large bird that stands nearly as tall as she does. It stays close to her seat, keeping a watchful eye for suspicious characters.
What is unusual is the expression on her face.
Adia has come to the Nexus upset before, but this is different. All her nervous energy is gone, replaced with a washed-out, nearly lethargic appearance. She's holding a children's drawing in her hands, staring at it for long seconds before folding it along well-worn creases. She picks at a corner, staring into the distance, then unfolds it and starts the process all over again.
This goes on for several minutes until Bucky, wise bird that he is, gently nudges her with his beak. Coming back to herself, she blinks and looks around, remembering where she is.
"Something... something bad happened back home. A lot of people are... really upset. And losing hope. How do you come back from that?" She looks down at the picture and whispers, "How do you learn to hope again?"
What is unusual is the expression on her face.
Adia has come to the Nexus upset before, but this is different. All her nervous energy is gone, replaced with a washed-out, nearly lethargic appearance. She's holding a children's drawing in her hands, staring at it for long seconds before folding it along well-worn creases. She picks at a corner, staring into the distance, then unfolds it and starts the process all over again.
This goes on for several minutes until Bucky, wise bird that he is, gently nudges her with his beak. Coming back to herself, she blinks and looks around, remembering where she is.
"Something... something bad happened back home. A lot of people are... really upset. And losing hope. How do you come back from that?" She looks down at the picture and whispers, "How do you learn to hope again?"
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Her general demeanor is one of concern right now. And recently, after successfully acquiring a flash, Harley has alcohol to offer. She has grabbed two Styrofoam cups from the coffee area, and places them down in front of Adia. Then she pours half of a cup for both of them (it is whiskey that is in the flask tonight).
"What happened, sweetness?" Yes, Harley has given Adia a nickname.
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He does dig the colors, though. Red and blue are his jam.
Adia watches the other woman pour out the drinks with a somewhat blank expression on her face. It's not until Harley asks her what's wrong that she moves at all, and then it's only to refold her picture and tuck it into her messenger bag. Harley doesn't know anything about her situation. Starting an explanation from the beginning feels like an exhausting endeavor.
But the woman is concerned. And has her own wild, heart-breaking past. Adia's story can't be that crazy in comparison.
"We're at war, where I'm from, with genocidal robots called Cylons. They destroyed our twelve colonies, and we've been on the run from them for... gods, nearly three years. We had hoped to find Earth -- it was considered a myth for a long time, but we recently obtained the coordinates..."
She smiles wryly. It looks all wrong on her normally innocent face. "Well, we found it. But it's completely destroyed. The thirteenth tribe had built their own Cylons over two thousand years ago, and the end result was a nuclear war." She sighs heavily. "It was our only hope. I don't know what we're going to do now..."
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"My first instinct is to tell you that you can't give up. Just because life screwed you over... it just means you have to fight harder."
"These awful things that happen can do one of two things. They can make you a better and stronger person. Or they can stomp all over you. And it really is only up to you how you react." And she nods slightly. She was bluntly honestly, but wasn't insulting or rude.
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"I'm not a fighter." She picks up her own cup and smells it before taking a small sip. Yep, that's whiskey all right. "I mean, not literally... and not really metaphorically, either. I haven't given up yet, but..." Her voice cracks slightly. "But we don't have anywhere else to go. The Cylons are still after us... well, the bad ones, anyway."
She winces at her own choice of words and takes another sip. A Cylon civil war should be good news, but a fat lot of help it does when there's nowhere for them to run anymore. Not to mention that her Cylon ex is still on the wrong side...
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Gods, she had been so naive...
"Maybe..." She looks up at Harley. "The logistics would be a nightmare. And I'd have to tell people about the Nexus. No one knows except me..."
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"Just because one place is not longer an option, doesn't mean that all the options are gone, sweetness."
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She smiles faintly before worry takes over her expression. But at least it isn't despair again. "There are the Cylons, though... they still hate us. Probably even more so now that their rebels are on our side. What if they follow us?"
That's the real problem. There were a few planets that the Fleet could have settled on, if they really wanted to start over. But it would make them sitting ducks for the Cylons. Again. Changing universes might not solve that problem.
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Harley takes another drink of her whiskey. "It will be scary as hell. War is always scary. But if you don't fight, then what is the point?"
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"The rebel Cylons already destroyed their ability to resurrect," she murmurs. "But they still have greater numbers. More firepower..."
She looks at Harley again, her pale blue eyes inexplicably sad. "Do you have psychics on your world? People who can see the future?"
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She reaches into her bag and pulls out the folded paper. "There's a little girl in the Fleet. She's half-Cylon and half human. The only one of her kind. I babysat her once, and she drew me a picture."
Carefully unfolding it, she shows it to Harley. There is a little stick figure woman with hair like Adia's who is holding hands with a stick figure man in a purple suit, a red heart between them. There is a yellow sun above them, a line of green grass below them, and the number 5 written in the rest of the blank space.
"That's me... and that's Caspar. My ex. He's a Cylon... he was a sleeper agent. His model is called Five." She frowns and briefly bites her lip. "This is... I'm not sure. The future? Earth? Nobody told her about Caspar, she drew it unprompted."
Not sure if Harley will be sympathetic or not, she quickly folds up the picture again. "His model didn't rebel. If we destroy them all... that's it for him. Whatever Hera saw, there won't ever be a chance of it happening."
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So she bites back a suspicious thought about the work itself. To her, it feels like a set-up. That Adia was being lied to.
She knows better than most how a 'childish and innocent' person can deceive others easier. Harley had played that role many times.
"I think the loss of the romance is also upsetting you."
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Harley is right to be suspicious, but not for the reason she thinks. Hera is barely three years old, a sweet girl with an unusual heritage. But she's center of some unexplainable forces at work in her universe. Forces that Adia isn't privy to, and likely wouldn't believe even if she found out.
Adia tenses her shoulders and for a moment looks like she'd like to rip the drawing in half. "I know," she admits, barely above a whisper. "I... I've tried to get over him a million times, but I still miss him." She sighs. "It doesn't matter. This... it's not worth hoping for. He's not one of the rebel models, and there's no Earth to hold hands on. It's stupid. But I don't want him to die, either."
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"And it ain't stupid to want to hope for something..."
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"I'm..." She sighs and rubs her arm. "I'm just tired of being the fool. Of... of thinking things are one way, and then having the rug pulled out from under me."
She picks up her cup again and takes another sip of whiskey. The burning sensation seems to center her. "The whole thing is out of my hands, anyway. Well, maybe not finding a new place to live. But how we fight the Cylons. That's up to the military."
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"Girl... so many people take one look at me, and decide that I am foolish from that first assumption. But I find that people talk more, when they don't think you are smart enough to follow their conversations. They open up more, when they don't think you are worth anything. They let their weaknesses show... and then, you have the advantage."
"Be a fool, Adia. There is ways to be a smart fool. The one no one suspects, until the last minute. The one everyone forgets about, until it is time to take the spotlight."
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But could Adia? It's one thing to let her kind heart to lead her astray. It's another thing to play it as a role. She smiles awkwardly and takes another sip of whiskey. "Can a smart fool still hope that things will work out for the best?"
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"Of course. Some people say that only fools hope. Well, that is why I am honored to be a card-carrying fool. I still have hope."
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Although maybe he should reconsider that? Tutelage under a supervillain turned anti-hero(?) is either a very good or a very bad idea for the innocent Mss Costas, who is watching Harley with soft eyes.
"So what do you hope for?"
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